When the Council of the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare agreed to the publication of Animal Welfare, it noted that the enterprise had the potential to do much good in the animal welfare field and also to be a constant drain on the financial resources of the Federation. It decreed that after some three to five years a decision would have to be made as to the real value, to UFAW, of continuing to produce the Journal. This decision was to be based on a consideration of whether or not the Journal was practically viable - Was it producible? Did it satisfy a need? - and whether or not its production costs bore a realistic relationship to its earnings from paid subscriptions. The Journal will soon be entering its fourth publication year and the decision day therefore draws near. A strong case can be made that it is indeed producible - a look at the Contents list for this issue demonstrates that this is so. It fulfils a need: we have, for example, a whole queue of manuscripts on offer for publication and we have a modest but steady number of regular subscribers. Its long-term economic viability however, is still uncertain. It is expensive to produce and the academic and animal welfare communities have not, over the last few years, been sufficiently funded that they can readily subscribe to new journals. There is not, as yet, ‘a realistic relationship between its earnings from paid subscriptions and its production costs’. A solution to this financial imbalance has yet to be found.

In assessing the relative merits of farm animal production systems or research procedures using live animals, the impact on the welfare of the animals involved is increasingly being taken into account. Many human activities and human-induced environmental changes can, similarly, adversely affect the welfare of free-living wild animals. As part of a study to investigate the ways in which, and the extent to which this occurs, we considered methods for the assessment of wildlife welfare. Although it is widely accepted that animals can experience and suffer pain and stress, there are difficulties in measuring the intensities of these states (and continuing debate about the terminology and meaning of these and related concepts as applied to animals). In attempting to scale the degree of harm in the various cases examined, a number of factors need to be considered, including: the nature of the harm caused its duration, the numbers of animals affected and their capacity for suffering. We explored ways of quantifying these. The study was undertaken to provide a basis for prioritizing actions to alleviate existing wildlife welfare problems and for assessing the possible wildlife welfare impact of future environmental changes or changes in industrial, agricultural and other practices.

In order to assess the environmental enrichment value of a small swimming pool for captive juvenile rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta), observations of social and individual behaviours were made during baseline and experimental (pool) conditions. When the pool was available there was less social grooming and cage manipulation, and more play. Most of the monkeys engaged in diving and underwater swimming. The presence of pieces of banana at the bottom of the pool reduced these water-related activities, whereas when raisins were spread along the bottom or when there was no food in the water, there was more diving and less aggression. Certain effects tended to vary with dominance status, but individual differences appeared more important than social status in determining reactions to the water. The provision of a small swimming pool for captive macaques is an effective contribution to improving their welfare.

Data are presented on a number of aspects of a drive hunt of a pod of long-finned pilot whales (Globicephala melas; Traill) which occurred in the Faroe Islands in July 1992. Empirical data collected by observers are presented on aspects of the drive and killing phase of the drive hunt. These focus on the welfare implications of the two main pieces of equipment used in the hunt, the gaff and the knife. The body zone targeted by the gaff ranged from the melon to the dorsal fin. Ten of the 14 initial uses of the gaff recorded resulted in the whale being insecurely fastened and entailed further gaff strikes. Five case studies are presented of towing times, before cutting occurred but post-gaffing, when the whale was secured by the gaff to a boat (median: 66s). The number of gaff strikes on an individual whale ranged from zero to four (median: two). Fifty-seven per cent of cutting episodes using the knife were initiated behind the blowhole, 43per cent on the whales ‘flanks. Data on the sequential use of the gaff and the knife are presented for seven whales. Data are also presented on the duration of the cutting episodes for these seven whales (median: 80s) and the total time elapsed from initial wounding until loss of voluntary movement occurred (median: 126s). Certain behaviours shown by the whale after the use of the gaff and knife are discussed and analysed in the context of the physiology, anatomy and social structure of pilot whales. Conclusions are presented on a number of welfare aspects of this hunt and compared with data from other whaling operations.

Previous studies have shown that male mink (Mustela vison) removed from their mothers at seven weeks of age develop more tail-biting than males left with their mothers until six months. Mink in the wild do not damage their own pelts in this way, and such behaviour may well be an indication of chronic stress.

The aim of this experiment was to investigate further the causes of tail-biting by considering female young as well as male, and by lowering the age at which the late-weaned ‘ mink were separated from their mother to 11 weeks, by which age their period of socialization should be complete. This was to generate results of more practical use to farmers, who cannot leave all young with their mothers until six months of age for reasons of space. Mink removed from their mothers at seven or eleven weeks of age did indeed differ in the incidence of tail-biting. Early-weaned ‘females were more likely than late-weaned females to have bitten their tails at six months of age. A similar result was evident as a trend for both sexes at ten months. Furthermore, at this age, some animals ‘ tail tips were completely bald and such animals were all early-weaned.

Where provided with plastic drinker dishes, early-weaned animals were also more likely to chew these. Thus weaning age had long-lasting effects on a number of oral behaviour patterns. These results suggest that young animals predisposed to tail-bite might be diverted by the provision of other objects to chew, and that if problems of over-crowding are avoided, leaving mink kits with their mothers until 11 weeks might improve their welfare.

Soiling of nests in modified cages for laying hens might be reduced by using a wire mesh floor for the nest. However, use of such a material might be contrary to the preferences of the hens and compromise their welfare. Twenty-four laying hens were housed singly in modified cages which incorporated two nests. One nest had the standard perforated plastic floor whilst the other had one of two types of metal mesh floor. To determine whether hens preferred any one of the floor types for oviposition, the positions of the nest floors were swapped three times during 110 days. The hens showed a dichotomy in their behaviour after the nestfloors were swapped: the majority (12 of those making a consistent choice) continued to lay in the same nest location (ie location conservative) whereas 6-9 hens changed the nest in which they laid (ie floor type conservative). Only one of the floor type conservative hens preferred to lay on metal mesh. These results show that although the majority of hens showed no apparent aversion to laying in nests with metal mesh floors, 57-68 per cent preferred plastic floors and changed location to lay on this substrate.

Learning tests in animal psychology are highly standardized with regard to both the formulation of scientific questions and the methods employed to obtain reliable answers. The Skinnerian technique of conditioning rats or pigeons in small test chambers has established itself as the main laboratory method in this field. Despite the undeniable advantages of highly controlled and manipulated test conditions, a number of problems with respect to the welfare of the test animals arise from the standard application of this method. These problems are specified here along with the presentation of new techniques that have been developed at the University of Vienna. The methodological improvements are related to the housing, testing and weighing of the pigeons and ameliorate the conditions these animals previously confronted within the laboratory.

The seventeenth report of a series on bovine tuberculosis in badgers has been published by MAFF. It was prepared by the Consultative Panel on Badgers and Bovine Tuberculosis which was set up by the Ministry with the remit of:

• i) keeping under review the evidence relating to bovine tuberculosis in badgers, including its distribution, its prevalence and its relationship to bovine tuberculosis in cattle;

• ii) advising on the operations to be undertaken by the Ministry in order to limit the transmission of tuberculosis from badgers to cattle;

• iii) recommending research appropriate to the problem of badgers and bovine tuberculosis.

There have been a number of changes in the legal regulations controlling the use of animals in biomedical research institutes in the United States of America. A short summary-booklet has been written by Robert R Smeby and published in February 1994 by the Scientists Center for Animal Welfare (SCAW), and is a useful and reasonably detailed account of the current statutory requirements. The summary cannot be used as a replacement to the complete regulations as published in the Federal Register but it will still be found most helpful by scientists, research animal care personnel and by others wanting or needing to know something of the details of the regulations covering laboratory animal care and use in the United States.

The edited proceedings of a conference sponsored by SCAW and WARDS, held in Washington DC on 21 May 1993 has now been published by the sponsors. The main parts of the publication consist of the full texts of the papers given at the meeting:

The proceedings volume containing the edited texts of the papers etc presented at the 5th symposium of the FELASA meeting held in Brighton (UK) in June 1993 has been published A further 69 printed papers based on the posters displayed during the meeting are printed in this substantial book. The material is grouped under several headings - a number of which have obvious animal welfare interest, eg: Expression and relief of pain (5 papers) Planning better experiments (3 papers)

A series of video programmes each of which is accompanied by a set of teacher's notes has been prepared by The Television Centre of the University of Portsmouth as an aid to the teaching of ‘A’ level biology. The programmes examine the fundamental anatomy of the dogfish, frog, pigeon and rat and make use of high quality photographs, graphic overlays and 3-dimensional computer animations and diagrams. The material is clear and well presented and has an obvious use in biological courses. Whether the videos should replace entirely the use of fresh material or act as complementary teaching aids must remain the decision of the course supervisors and teachers. The series has been produced with support from the European Commission and has been endorsed by the Institute of Biology.

Campaigning animal welfare societies tend to produce promotional material which varies from the cheap and sensational to the authoritative and substantial. The new teaching resource pack put out for use in National Curriculum Stages 3 and 4, ie for age range 11 to 16-year-olds, by Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) lies clearly in the latter category. It is made up of some 40 colour slides and a fairly substantial accompanying booklet written by John Callaghan of the CIWF Trust. The colour transparencies, all of which are of high quality, illustrate some aspects of intensive farming, of slaughterhouses, of extensively-kept animals and scenes from CIWF campaigns. The booklet is laid out in parallel order to the slide sequence with an explanatory paragraph for each of the slides. The whole is well produced. It is, of course, educational/promotional/campaigning material and largely presents extreme examples of the good and bad, but it is to a great extent accurate in its facts and realistic in its approach to the problem of man's use and misuse of farmed livestock.

This summer's issue of the Johns Hopkins CAAT newsletter is, in effect, a 20-page guide to information resources on alternatives and animal welfare. It comprises an introductory 5-page paper by Ken Boschert on ‘International networking and computer resources’; an inventory of ‘Electronic mailing lists of interest to laboratory animal specialists’; an annotated roll of ‘Institutional resources - North America’; lists of ‘Institutional resources - overseas’ and ‘Other sources of information’; an annotated directory of ‘Technology resources’ (largely commercial organizations etc in the United States which supply off-the-shelf alternative tests or material for use in alternative test systems); a short list by F Barbara Orlans and Amelia Tarzi of the ‘Top ten sources of funding for alternatives (US)’, and a 7-page article by Krys Ungar and David C Anderson entitled ‘An inventory of databases and other sources of information on alternatives to the use of animals in science and education’.

The New Zealand Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (AWAC), which was established in September 1988, has recently published its third report.